


Schrodinger

by leftofrevolution



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Namekian World-Building, Pre-Android Saga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftofrevolution/pseuds/leftofrevolution
Summary: He had never been anything but himself. Whatever the hell that meant.





	Schrodinger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeurotropicAgentX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeurotropicAgentX/gifts).



If there was one thing that the past week had made extremely clear, it was that Piccolo didn’t understand humans at all. They lived packed in tight next to each other like rabbits in a warren—like vermin— _voluntarily_ , couldn’t seem to function if there wasn’t another human within arm’s reach, whereas Piccolo got twitchy anytime anyone walked within five meters of him.

(Except Gohan, of course.)

After seven days of living at the Briefs compound, the twitch was starting to develop into a facial tic. And by human standards the place was _massive_ , he could be meditating in the middle of their park thing for hours and maybe only see about three people, but he could still _sense_ everyone, the horde of bodies pushing in. Hundreds could amass on his position in less than a minute, each one a dagger poised and ready to plunge into his back. It didn’t matter that only two of them had the appreciable power level to hurt him (and one of those two was Gohan, for fuck’s sake); his power had shot up so quickly in the past two months that his instincts were still wired to register anyone with a power level more than one hundred times human baseline as a threat.

Of which there _were_ more than one hundred, because the entirety of the Namekian race was currently _also_ living within the Briefs compound until their planet got wished back, and every single one of those pinged on his senses as an unfamiliar power level strong enough to gut him.

It was exhausting, but he couldn’t fucking _leave_ because Vegeta was here,  and if that asshole went on a rampage he and Gohan were the only beings on the planet with a chance to stop him, and he wasn’t about to let Gohan face that alone.

So he was stuck here until they wished Goku back.

Which meant he was stuck here for the next four months.

The year leading up to the Saiyans’ arrival had been more relaxing, not least because this time one of those Saiyans was _already_ here and a massive tool who kept on trying to goad him into a fight (which, _no_ , Piccolo would fight Vegeta again when it came time to kill the bastard and not a second before, like hell he would let Vegeta get another preview of any of his techniques before he blew off the Saiyan’s head with one of them).

He had also spent that year out in the woods with no one around but Gohan, who Piccolo’s senses even back then had consistently failed to register as any kind of threat whatsoever. Also, in retrospect, he had spent that year doing what he liked to do most anyway, except with more purpose, a cute little apprentice following him around and treating him like he was the best thing since bread (or however that saying went), and with the memory of having recently drilled Son Goku through the chest and watched him bleed out on the ground (and yeah, okay, maybe he didn’t hate the guy anymore, but that memory never stopped being weirdly satisfying no matter how many times the idiot saved the day).

He still trained daily, of course, and Gohan was still around treating him like really good bread (even if his mom whisked him away periodically to go read those books of hers), _and_ Goku was still dead, but it really wasn’t the same at all.

Because of all the people, when you got right down to it. The mostly green people. A few of whom he was becoming increasingly sure were stalking him.

Like the old guy near the tree line about a hundred meters away pretending to meditate, except Piccolo knew exactly what someone’s ki felt like when they were meditating and the old guy’s ki was _way_ too active for that.

It was just as much the flimsiness of the lie as the lie itself that was beginning to irritate him. Did they all think he was an idiot?

He was becoming so irritated, in fact, that it was throwing off his shadow boxing, and when he flubbed a jab for the third time in as many minutes, he finally gave up and lowered his arms before yelling over, “Hey!”

The old guy had the nerve to pretend to act surprised that Piccolo was talking to him, and he _kept_ that stupidly, friendly befuddled expression on his face as he uncrossed his legs and walked over. “Yes?”

“Don’t give me that,” Piccolo growled. “You’ve been watching me for days, and it’s starting to piss me off. What do you want?”

The old guy gnawed on his lower lip thoughtfully, before saying, “You are Piccolo.”

Piccolo crossed his arms. “Yeah. I am. What of it?”

The old guy nodded. “Young Gohan has been telling us about you.”

Piccolo felt an unexpected flash of betrayal—like, what the fuck kid—except then reality caught up with his brain and he realized Gohan _had_ to have told the Namekians something about him to begin with to sell them on wasting two of their precious wishes on getting him to Namek.

Also it wasn’t like Gohan had ever been anything like discreet. Piccolo had learned more about Son Goku in that one year just listening to Gohan chatter around dinner—about Son Goku’s eating habits, about his training, about where he best liked to _fish_ , for Pete’s sake—than he had in the previous eight combined, and that was _after_ he’d made clear to the kid how much he hated his dad. It would probably be surprising (insulting, maybe a little disappointing) if Gohan _hadn’t_ talked about him to at least Dende after a whole week of living at the compound together.

So he stamped down on his initial reaction—which would have said some unflattering things about _someone’s_ mother—for a flat, “Has he.”

The old guy studied him for a moment. “You don’t know who I am, do you.”

Damn, the Namekians really did think he was an idiot, didn’t they. “You’re the oldest Namekian around. Which I guess by Namekian standards makes you the one in charge.” He sneered to show what he thought of having _seniority_ be the sole criterion for command. No wonder there were barely a hundred of them if they always let the most fossilized, senile member of their race call all the shots.

The old guy seemed unperturbed. “I am the new Namekian Elder, yes.” He gave a slight bow. “It is good to meet you formally. My name is Moori.”

Piccolo was unimpressed. “Fine. I don’t actually care. You still haven’t told me what you want, old man.”

The old guy blinked, obviously having not expected the continued hostility in the wake of having introduced himself. As if Piccolo hadn’t gotten over old green guys wielding civility as a weapon against him since before he was even born. As if having _manners_ made them better than him. “I… truly did just want to meet you. We lost contact with the space-faring Namekians after the cataclysm; you are the first Namekian I have ever seen who is not a son of our previous Elder, Guru.”

Piccolo felt himself twitch; no matter how many times someone called him a Namekian—no matter the obvious, glaring, disappointing truth of it—it always felt like someone punching him in the face. Up until two months ago, he had lived his entire life as the reincarnation of Demon King Piccolo, and to be told—insistently, at length, by seemingly everyone—that he instead was a member of a race of sentient plant-slug people from another planet seemed like an incredible step down. For like one thousand different reasons.

It was one thing to live the first eight years of your life alone because there was no one else like you in the universe; because you were a fucking _demon_ , because the closest thing you had to family was your dad’s self-righteous ‘better half’ who wanted nothing more than to lock you away in a jar forever. He hadn’t _liked_ being alone all the time—Gohan, at least, had put that into stark relief—but at least there had been a _reason_. He couldn’t say he had ever been happy, but he had been comfortable in the knowledge that he existed to be the sworn, eternal nemesis of god. Unique. Special.

Except he was really neither, and based on the power levels of the other Namekians he had apparently been weak as hell to boot. The runt of the Namekian race, not so much god’s adversary as the unwanted leftovers of a jumped up begonia with delusions of grandeur.

And then there was Moori, who had the gall to stare at him as if he was _expecting_ something. “Well then congratulations,” said Piccolo sarcastically. “Consider us met, and kindly fu-”

“Dende told me you entered into _mortemba_ with Nail,” said Moori, interrupting him as if Piccolo couldn’t tear his head off before he had time to blink.

Interrupting him with complete _gibberish_ , at that. “… What.”

“Dende told me-”

“I _heard_ you,” Piccolo said. “I just don’t know why you think I have any idea what you’re talking about. The little green kid told you I entered into _what_ with the _who_?”

Moori blinked again. Then again. The slow widening of his eyes, the tightening around his mouth, was _almost_ fear, except seeing that on someone’s face had never made Piccolo feel both like something was clenching in his stomach and a hot flash of rage. “… I see. He must have been wrong.” Moori gave a short bow before starting to turn away. “My apologies.”

Right. He knew where he had seen that expression before. On Kami’s face, literally every time Piccolo had seen the old fuck. _Disappointment_ , that was it. Like Moori had had _expectations_ , and Piccolo had failed to live up to them.

The clenching feeling and the rage were both familiar and not; considering how channeling his dad had completely failed to get him anywhere when he fought Goku—considering how it always left him feeling kind of mixed up afterwards, his vision overlaid with something red and alien and a little bit sick—he hadn’t bothered much with it in the six years since. But the rage was as much his dad’s as his—King Piccolo never closer to the surface as when they faced his other—and it was as he felt a cruel grin curl the corners of his mouth that he said, casually, “Are you talking about that dying guy whose power I took?”

Even half turned away, Piccolo could see old man’s shoulders stiffen. He felt his smile twist further. “Damn, you are, aren’t you. So his name was Nail? Sorry to tell you,” he said, not feeling sorry at all, “But that guy is _very_ dead. He _wanted_ to enter into _mortemba_ with me,” soul melding, a sacred expression of trust and love distorted by a dying man’s desperation to save his people; Piccolo felt both completely indifferent about it and a deep-seeded satisfaction that did nothing to quiet his rage, “but I told him I didn’t want any part of him but his power. The rest of him I left in the dirt on Namek.”

Still mostly turned away, Moori took a deep breath, then exhaled. When he turned back to Piccolo, there was a line of tears tracking down both his cheeks, but his face was calm. “You truly do hate me, don’t you.”

His grin was starting to hurt, but Piccolo wasn’t sure he could have stopped even if he wanted to. “How could I do anything else. You said you wanted to meet me, when what you _really_ wanted was to meet _him_. What you _wanted_ was for me to have died on Namek so you could have your little brother back.”

The old man’s flinch told Piccolo everything he needed to know. Piccolo barked out a laugh. It sounded better than it felt, which wasn’t saying a lot; a horrible grating feeling in his chest and his throat like he was being scraped raw against a cliff face. Familiar not-familiar. It hurt more than he remembered, but… he had almost gotten used to people looking him in the face and not hoping to see someone else looking back. “That’s what I thought.”

If there was one thing that his entire life had made extremely clear, it was that Piccolo understood Namekians just fine. And he wanted nothing to do with any of them.

It should have felt right, that this time he was the one to turn away. But even as the rage faded, the clenching in his stomach stayed a heavy, immovable weight. “Go away, old man. If we never meet again it’ll be too soon.”

Moori left, quietly. Not quietly enough—a whispered “ _Sorry_ ,” that Piccolo didn’t believe and didn’t want to hear—but at least he was gone.

And Piccolo wasn’t alone. At least, not for long.

“Mister Piccolo? Sorry to interrupt your training, but your ki felt weird. Are you okay?”

Piccolo took in a deep lungful of air, slowly. When he breathed it out, the weight in his stomach—the alien red bleeding in the corners of his eyes—went with it, and when he smiled down at Gohan, it didn’t hurt at all. “Yeah. Everything’s just fine, kid.”


End file.
